“Why not? If the choice is between the estate and your happiness—”
“The estate is my happiness.”
His hand tightened on hers almost imperceptibly. “You would marry Burton-Smythe in order to keep it?”
“I don’t want to marry him. But Beasley must come first.”
“You fear what he’ll do to it if left to his own devices, is that it? You believe he’ll run it straight into the ground?”
“It’s not that,” she admitted.
On the contrary, according to the letter she’d lately received from Mr. Entwhistle, the decisions Fred had been making in regard to Beasley Park had, thus far, been sound ones. Generous ones, too. He’d even approved a plan to replace the old roofs of the tenant cottages—a costly scheme that Maggie had advocated for herself.
“It’s just that…he’s put me in an impossible position.”
“Nothing is impossible,” St. Clare said.
“Some things are. Believe me, sir. If any of it were easy, I’d have already sorted it out for myself. As things stand, I intend to consult a solicitor. Though I don’t hold out much hope. My father made his wishes abundantly clear.”
“What can I do to help? My grandfather has solicitors. Private inquiry agents, too. If it’s a matter of law—”
“I don’t need your help, thank you. I shall deal with it. And with Fred, too. I don’t require any—”
“Don’t be stubborn merely for the sake of it. Pray, let me be of use to you. I shall run mad otherwise.”
She gave him an ironic look. “You’re very keen for someone who claims to have known me only a fortnight.”
There was nothing of amusement in his face. Not any longer. “I know my own mind, Miss Honeywell.”
“And I know mine. I’ll sort it out myself. There’s more to consider than legalities. Fred is…Fred.” She withdrew her hand from St. Clare’s grasp. “If you were Nicholas Seaton, you’d understand that better than anyone.”
Jane chose that moment to reappear at the end of the garden path, Lord Mattingly at her heels.
Rising from the bench, Maggie pasted on a smile. “There you are. I wondered where you’d got to.”
The following afternoon, St. Clare returned from Jackson’s Boxing Saloon, his mind still in a state of turmoil. Exercise usually served to settle it, but not today. No amount of sparring had calmed him, not even during those minutes when he’d imagined that his opponent was Frederick Burton-Smythe.
Entering the marble-tiled hall at Grosvenor Square, he divested himself of his hat and gloves and handed them to Jessup.
“Lord Allendale requests your presence in the library, my lord,” the antiquated butler said.
St. Clare ran a hand over his rumpled hair. “Now?”
“Immediately upon your return. He was quite clear on that point.”
St. Clare made for the library. If his grandfather wanted to see him so urgently, it was nothing to the good. Best to get it over with.
He entered without knocking, finding his grandfather seated behind his carved mahogany desk. His head was bent over what looked to be a newspaper.
“You wished to see me?” St. Clare crossed the thickly carpeted floor to stand in front of him.
The library at Grosvenor Square was a masculine room, smelling of pipe smoke and leather. Wooden shelves lined the walls, sagging under the weight of old books and new ones. Volumes on travel, archaeology, and natural history abounded, stacked on every available surface. They were complemented by inlaid tables draped in maps of the world, and a magnificent terrestrial globe standing in a tall carved frame.
Allendale looked up from his paper. He scowled. “Back at last, are you?” He gestured to the leather-upholstered chair in front of his desk. “Sit.”
St. Clare sat down. “You expected me sooner? I can’t think why.” His grandfather had known he was going to Tattersall’s this morning, and then to Jackson’s Saloon after that. “We agreed at breakfast that we’d dine together before attending Lady Colchester’s ball.”
“That was this morning. Before I saw this.” Allendale thrust his newspaper across the desk.
St. Clare retrieved and opened it. But it wasn’t a newspaper at all. It was a gossip rag. One of the most unsavory, too. A veritable scandal sheet. He skimmed the small, smudged black print before looking up at his grandfather with a scowl. “What—”
“The second page,” Allendale said. “Quarter of the way down. Under that bit about the opera dancer.”
St. Clare looked again. This time he saw it. Indeed, he wondered that he hadn’t noticed it the first time. It was written there, plain as day, under the heading Tittle Tattle of the Fashionable World: